Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
And he gives me a dazzling smile that makes me all flustered inside.
“I just don’t want to get into trouble,” I protest again, but my words are fainter this time.
“No one’s going to fail you for coming with us,” Raptor reassures me. “You’re going to have five chaperones who will all report back to Master Jay that you touched nothing and simply held the lamps and some water for us. It’s not a bad thing for you to come down here, get some experience being in the caves and all that.”
“I’ve been in the caves before,” I remind him. Last year’s disastrous training involved us going down into the tunnels multiple times, only for us to get into all kinds of trouble.
“Yes, and you were with Master Magpie. The less said about that, the better, frankly. This will be different.” He casts me another easy look. “I’ll take care of you. No worries.”
I’m not worried about him not looking out for me. I’m more worried about what I’m going to feel when we go down into the tunnels. Every other time I went down into the Everbelow—the vast warren of tunnels and ruins that carve out Vastwarren’s underbelly like cheese—I’d be buzzing all over from the dead I’d sense. At first, I thought it was nerves, but now I know it was a lot more.
I’m also worried that I’m going to feel things too strongly and need to distract myself again or else I’ll give away my worst secret—that I might be a necromancer. But I can’t tell Raptor any of that, so I just nod and trot after him, clutching my fears to my chest.
We pass another secure walled area, Hawk flashing his authorization to let us through. Our group consists of Hawk, Raptor, a big older Taurian named Osprey, and two younger Taurians I don’t recognize. They don’t blink an eye when I join them, probably noting my fledgling sash and marking this as some sort of training.
Then we’re in what’s called the drop zone and I’m reminded of just how ugly the heart of the city truly is. You would think that digging for artifacts in an ancient, buried city beneath our feet would mean that we’re traipsing through marble ruins and old buildings. That’s what I thought, at least, when Aspeth first described things to me. Instead, the actual work area entrance looks like nothing more than a bunch of holes dug into the earth with scaffolding built around them. The entire field is covered in mud and tracks, and big gaping holes are scattered about, with rope-and-pulley systems for lowering artificers into the ruins.
I always thought it’d be more dramatic than that, but no. We’re tossed in like a bunch of bloody miners and expected to just wander about below as if we know what we’re doing. Sometimes the guild strikes me as utterly ridiculous.
Half of the Taurian team heads down first, and I’m in the second group. We wait for the basket to return and then climb in while a repeater turns a crank and lowers us to the appropriate level. The basket lurches along, swaying as we’re dropped down the tunnel, and I force myself to pay attention to my surroundings. As we go down deep into the earth, the sunlight above disappears, replaced by the dim glow from various artifacts lodged along the sides of the pit we descend. Sparrow told me once that artifacts that provide light are rather common, and so the guild uses them to illuminate the tunnels. I watch as we approach a glowing teacup and then pass it, followed by a small glowing stone of some kind, and then what looks like a candleholder with no candle. All the while, the basket creaks and continues to jerk downward.
Raptor leans over to me. “You nervous?”
“Just wondering if the repeaters have ever dropped a basket too far,” I whisper back.
“Aye, and a Taurian was sent to clean that mess up, too.”
I jerk to look at Raptor in shock, but the twinkle in his eye tells me that he’s joking. I pinch his arm to let him know I don’t find that funny, and his grin grows even broader. He leans in close to say something else, but I don’t hear it, because the basket drops into a large, echoing cavern, and then the buzz of a thousand long-dead bodies hits me like a slap to the face.
I’m dimly aware of Raptor sliding an arm around my waist even as the buzz grows greater and greater. My skin breaks out in a cold sweat, my guild shirt sticking to me immediately. It’s like we’ve dropped to a new level and I’m in close enough range to feel everything now. It’s stronger than ever before, and I don’t know how to make it stop. Nor do I know how I’m going to stay down here all day with them, pretending that nothing is wrong.